In the Cornish mysteries we lose much by having to use a translation. But something of the spirit and life survive in spite of it, and one detached passage from another of the plays, that of the _Crucifixion_, is printed in the appendix, which loses nothing by being compared with the treatment in other miracle-plays. Also in the Appendix will be found an interesting note from Norris's _Ancient Cornish Drama_, on the mode in which the Cornish mysteries were played; and a brief account by Mr. Jenner of the trilogy contained in that work. There remains John Bayle's play of _God's Promises_. Its author was born at the sea-doomed city of Dunwich in Suffolk, in 1495. Destined for the church, he showed his obstinacy early by marrying in defiance of his cloth. He was lucky and unlucky in being a _protégé_ of Thomas Cromwell, and had to fly the country on that dangerous agent's death. He returned when the new order was established, and became Bishop of Ossory, had to suffer and turn exile for his tenets again in Mary's reign; but found safe harbourage for his latter years at Canterbury, where he died. He wrote, on his own evidence, more than twenty plays, of which _God's Promises_, the _Life of John the Baptist_, and _King John_, a history play of interest as a pioneer, are best known. He himself called _God's Promises_ a tragedy, but unless the sense of Sodom hanging in the balance, while Abraham works down to its lowest point the diminishing ratio of the just to be found there, or of David's appearing before the Pater Cœlestis as the great judge, of dramatic or tragic emotion there is little indeed. But Bayle's rhetoric easily ran to the edge of suspense, as in the opening of his seventh act, where he puts the dramatic question in the last line:-- I have with fearcenesse mankynde oft tymes corrected, And agayne I have allured hym by swete promes. I have sent sore plages, when he hath me neglected, And then by and by, most confortable swetnes. To wynne hym to grace, bothe mercye and ryghteousnes I have exercysed, yet wyll he not amende. Shall I now lose hym, or shall I hym defende? And what could be finer than the setting he gives to the antiphon, _O Oriens Splendor_, at the end of the second act?